This film is short and sweet and leaves you with a good feeling. It is a bit cliched. I thought the family resembled sixteen candles that movie from the 80s which is also about life in the burbs and conflict, etc. I really like the film for it's performances and writing though. It's cinematography was also well done, noticeably on a low budget and in digital format.
Katie Holmes plays an interesting character. She is a punk with tattoos, piercings and a plethora of rings, along with pigtails dyed red. I think she pulled off the role quite well. Obviously she was playing against character her. She gained fame for Dawson's Creek as a small town all american girl. In this film she is the antithesis of that. She is the black sheep. And her mother is all too critical of her. The mother, Patricia Clarkson, is also very good as the mother who is dying of breast cancer. Her overly critical, pushed to the limit mother comes off as sympathetic in the end, perhaps the entire movies because the premise of the film stems from her having cancer and being close to death.
Being a black sheep myself and with the holidays around the corner I could identify with some of the themes in this film. The daughter who hasn't done anything right, who's life is a "disaster." Who has tattoos and dresses "quirky." All hit home. Also the total antipathy towards suburbia and it's conformity and utter brainlessness. When I was young I used to loathe it so much.
Roger Ebert in his review makes a good point about how the film plays on stereotypes of young black men. During the sequence where her boyfriend is at the telephone booth I got the impression that he was up to something illegal. And his presentation to the family is also sketchy.
It was a good film. I wasn't aware that the director/writer had done this movie and others. I love What's Eating Gilbert Grape and I hope he does more films.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Review of Chabrol's Le Beau Serge
This was the first film of Chabrol's that I have seen. Along with Eric Rohmer he is a Nouvelle Vague director that I don't know much about. So much is said of Godard and Truffaut that other New Wave directors don't get much press. There aren't any books out in English about Chabrol. There are some film collections which I may buy. I watched Le Beau Serge on Hulu.com. The quality wasn't too bad for a film made over fifty years ago.
I thought the film was very well done. Chabrol was the first of the Cahiers du Cinema critics to make a feature film. The film was not set in Paris which struck me as different since most of the films I have seen from New Wave directors are set in Paris. Instead it was set in a small French town that looked impoverished. It was a new experience for me. I'm so used to the glitz and glamour of Paris in French movies. This was a welcome departure.
The story was also different. It involved childhood friends who had grown apart. One of them comes back to help his friend who has fallen on hard times and taken to drink. The climax is the ending, but the whole film hinges on a dance scene where the alcoholic friend beats up the friend trying to help. The trying to help friend doesn't leave. Many of the townspeople, including, surprisingly enough, the town priest tell him to leave. He stays which makes the end of the film very good.
In the end the alcoholic friend's wife has a healthy baby and it is implied that this is going to change him.
It's a simple, but powerful film. In the small town everyone is so resigned. They all think nothing ever changes. There is no point to trying. The main character with his city ways is looked at as an outsider. Why does he stay? Everyone else has given up. Why does he care? In the end his perseverance helps out his friend. The baby lives. The alcoholic is left happy. Things can be different.
I thought the film was very well done. Chabrol was the first of the Cahiers du Cinema critics to make a feature film. The film was not set in Paris which struck me as different since most of the films I have seen from New Wave directors are set in Paris. Instead it was set in a small French town that looked impoverished. It was a new experience for me. I'm so used to the glitz and glamour of Paris in French movies. This was a welcome departure.
The story was also different. It involved childhood friends who had grown apart. One of them comes back to help his friend who has fallen on hard times and taken to drink. The climax is the ending, but the whole film hinges on a dance scene where the alcoholic friend beats up the friend trying to help. The trying to help friend doesn't leave. Many of the townspeople, including, surprisingly enough, the town priest tell him to leave. He stays which makes the end of the film very good.
In the end the alcoholic friend's wife has a healthy baby and it is implied that this is going to change him.
It's a simple, but powerful film. In the small town everyone is so resigned. They all think nothing ever changes. There is no point to trying. The main character with his city ways is looked at as an outsider. Why does he stay? Everyone else has given up. Why does he care? In the end his perseverance helps out his friend. The baby lives. The alcoholic is left happy. Things can be different.
Review of Godard's Vivre sa vie
This was the second time I had seen Vivre sa vie. The first time it left an impression on me. The ending is so tragic, so well done. It seems that Anna Karina is turning the corner leaving a life of prostitution. Then, quickly, she is being sold by her pimp to another pimp.
I could see some similarities to the films of Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi made several films about the life of prostititutes and other women who had suffered. His life of Oharu was a very well done film. It has been written that Vivre sa vie is Godard's best film from a technical standpoint. His camera work is much more sophisticated in Viver sa vie than in Breathless. There is still some Cinema verite influence in Vivre sa vie, but some shots are definitely more sophisticated. The famous shot of Anna Karina at the beginning of the film where the camera doesn't show her face. It only shows the back of her head is very unique. I kept wanting to see her face.
The scenes where she is taking clients are also similar to the famous back of head shot. Those scenes are set in small rooms and often don't show Karina's whole body or give a wide perspective of the action going on in the film. The shot only shows Karina's face or an askance shot of her sitting on the edge of a bed, or looking in the mirror. I like these shots very much. They were similar to dutch angle shots. Very unique.
The philosophical discourses in the film were, perhaps, the beginning for Godard's technique of self reflection in his films. The scene where he does a voice over while Karina looks at the camera is very different from Breathless or A Woman is a woman. There was some level of self reflection in A Woman is a Woman, but not as direct or philosophical as Vivre sa vie. I think that is what makes Vivre sa vie Godard's deepest film that I have seen so far. Richard Brody said that Godard was influenced by Sartre and existential philosophy more in Vivre sa vie, then in his previous films.
Aside from the deep philosophical statements, there is much said about prostitution in Paris. The discussion of the prostitution business gives the film an avant garde, taboo feel to it. At least it did for me. I can't recall so many films that discussed prostitution with such candor.
This film is deeper than A Woman is a Woman and it is more technically sound then Breathless. Yet it lacks the intensity of Breathless. I think Anna Karina is a good actrees, but Jean Seberg is hard to replace. C'est bon film!
I could see some similarities to the films of Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi made several films about the life of prostititutes and other women who had suffered. His life of Oharu was a very well done film. It has been written that Vivre sa vie is Godard's best film from a technical standpoint. His camera work is much more sophisticated in Viver sa vie than in Breathless. There is still some Cinema verite influence in Vivre sa vie, but some shots are definitely more sophisticated. The famous shot of Anna Karina at the beginning of the film where the camera doesn't show her face. It only shows the back of her head is very unique. I kept wanting to see her face.
The scenes where she is taking clients are also similar to the famous back of head shot. Those scenes are set in small rooms and often don't show Karina's whole body or give a wide perspective of the action going on in the film. The shot only shows Karina's face or an askance shot of her sitting on the edge of a bed, or looking in the mirror. I like these shots very much. They were similar to dutch angle shots. Very unique.
The philosophical discourses in the film were, perhaps, the beginning for Godard's technique of self reflection in his films. The scene where he does a voice over while Karina looks at the camera is very different from Breathless or A Woman is a woman. There was some level of self reflection in A Woman is a Woman, but not as direct or philosophical as Vivre sa vie. I think that is what makes Vivre sa vie Godard's deepest film that I have seen so far. Richard Brody said that Godard was influenced by Sartre and existential philosophy more in Vivre sa vie, then in his previous films.
Aside from the deep philosophical statements, there is much said about prostitution in Paris. The discussion of the prostitution business gives the film an avant garde, taboo feel to it. At least it did for me. I can't recall so many films that discussed prostitution with such candor.
This film is deeper than A Woman is a Woman and it is more technically sound then Breathless. Yet it lacks the intensity of Breathless. I think Anna Karina is a good actrees, but Jean Seberg is hard to replace. C'est bon film!
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